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This is the phrase being used at Ontario elementary schools this week, to explain the latest job action by teachers.

"Given the current situation ..."

And then a child will be told there will be no more band practice this year.

Or no more flag football, Halloween dance, book club, Christmas recital -- a long list of things will follow the phrase: "Given the current situation."

The child will hear the phrase in a school gymnasium perhaps, summoned for an assembly where a non-unionized school principal or vice-principle will thank them for coming and then dropping their voice an octave, in their best serious voice, say: "Given the current situation ..."

And then explain how the child is about to get worked over and used as a pawn in the labour dispute between the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario and the provincial government.

You won't be doing this. You won't be doing that. We'll let you know if we're bothering with report cards this year.

Principals and teachers and school boards won't come right out and say kids are being used as pawns. Everyone prefers to hide behind meaningless expressions.

But kids know what is happening to them. Look around. See how they roll their eyes as soon as an adult says something like: "Given the current situation."

E. B. White, the author of Charlotte's Web, once said writing for children was a more difficult task than writing for adults because children tended to be more honest and not as easily deceived.

Write a false line and they will catch you, said White. Utter too many meaningless phrases and they will give up on you entirely.

I think grade-school children have given up on us.

Given up, moved on, and I can't say I blame them. Every thing about the current job action in our schools -- or education and politics in Ontario in general -- is little more than bad writers trying to con us.

The government originally said the millions of dollars in payouts to the teachers' union was for the one-time cost of a new bargaining process.

Two days later, when it was revealed those payments went back at least as far as 2008, the premier and the education minister turn around and say those were "precursor expenses" to the actual one-time expenses.

Will there soon be prelude to precursor expenses? Or preliminary to prelude to precursor expenses, incurred in the run-up to the actual one-time expense?

Of course there will be.

It's bad fiction. With a lazy, arrogant disregard not only for our children and our tax dollars, but the very language we are supposed to be teaching them.

"Given the current situation."

There is no situation. Let's start with that. No situation ever danced, went exploring, fell off a cliff, became a best friend or took away your Christmas recital.

People do that.

Same way it's people who cancel field trips, don't write report cards and ban extra curricular activities.

Nor is a situation ever "given" to you. The cancellation of extra-curricular activity in every elementary school in Ontario is not something that magically happens or is magically bestowed.

It's an act done by people.

As for the word current -- really? You don't even need it. It's a useless word. You're wasting the kids' time.

So break it all down and "given the current situation" is two-times deceitful, one-time wasteful, with the only honest word being "the."

No wonder kids are rolling their eyes. No wonder education in this province is hitting an all-time low.